nothing personal
by topaz.saltrose
Summary: At the bottom of the impending volcano, two falls were broken - but only for a moment. Just enough time to experience a very exquisite kind of pain.


"Lieutenant."

She starts, and curses herself immediately for being surprised. The cavern in which their camp is pitched is making her uneasy, not least because of the faint glowing green that issues from the stalactite (lamp?) above. "Commander." She inclines her head and he joins her on the rock outcrop. Her legs are dangling off the side of the stone bridge, and one hand rests ever-ready on the pistol at her hip.

"You're getting impatient," Rourke observes, and she flicks her braid over her shoulder.

"Well, I still don't have much faith that we're getting anywhere in the right direction." She stares up at the light, eyes narrowed. "You can't see the sun down here. I don't like it. Impossible to navigate and we have Thatch in charge of our entire expedition. Do you blame me for being impatient?"

"No." Rourke sounds almost amused. His hand drifts to the small of her back and she twists, stretches like she's trying to get him to let go, but he doesn't. Helga presses her lips together and her eyes slide to meet his.

"I'm impatient by nature."

"A dangerous quality."

She smirks at him.

Sometimes he makes her think that he loves her.

She pushes this thought out of her head quickly whenever it appears. No matter what her relationship with the Commander might be, or what he does to her when no one else is around, mistaking it for love is something she cannot afford and does not care to do. A companionship of like-minded individuals - that's what she thinks of it as. Sometimes when she is very tired she has exhaustion-fueled half-dreams about what it would be like if they were together, how many lost worlds they could conquer, how with the two of them combined they would be impossible to stop. It's tantalizing.

She's lying next to him on cold stone ground. She'll rise before him tomorrow and slip back to her own tent unnoticed, although it's not really a secret if everyone already knows, is it? He shifts suddenly, the burly arm around her pulling her so she is closer to him, and she reflexively moves her hair so that it's not in his face, and this causes her to think, and so she makes herself sleep instead.

If the process of the crystal consuming his body had been painful, it was nothing compared to this. The Commander was rather a connoisseur of pain at this point in his career, but it did not stop him from writhing on the ground as the blue receded from his skin, leaving behind angry burns and welts. His right arm had been caught in the helicopter blade and he tried not to look at the place where it had been. He knew that he had broken several bones; every time he took a breath, he could feel his cracked ribs shuddering. Above him, fragments of the balloon rained down, interspersed with metal and flame.

Rourke groaned. He could hardly move, but he could see the way out, the way the Atlantean skyships had zoomed. There was still rage coursing in his veins, and adrenaline from the pain and the surreality of it all, and so he began to pull himself with his left arm across the pumice. The ash had broken his fall - it was the only reason he wasn't dead - or was it something to do with the crystal itself? The place where Thatch had cut him was not visible in the network of burns and raw skin left behind. His vision blurry, Rourke heaved himself forwards blindly and was greeted with a second fall off a shallow outcrop. His roar of pain was obscured somewhat by the imminent thundering of a volcano. As he forced his eyes open again he thought that perhaps he was already dead, because ahead of him he could see a strip of golden light….

The rumbling grew angrier as he used his last strength to crawl towards the light. And when he reached it, his eyes focused for a moment, and he was suddenly convinced that death had occurred long ago.

"You look like shit, Commander," said Helga, her voice barely a whisper.

"So - do you, Lieutenant." He could hardly hear the croak that came out of his mouth but she smirked. Her gun was lying at her side, and her legs were twisted at odd angles, and blood was soaking her shirt. She looked very beautiful.

"Hope - you can understand," she snarled. "It - really wasn't personal."

It was almost impossible to hear her over the volcano. "Of course." he groaned.

Her hand brushed his and she linked two of her fingers in his own, a gesture which was written in immense pain across her face, and he met her eyes. Rourke was forcibly reminded that they had been in this position many times before, but never quite so fatally injured. For a few seconds, they looked at one another.

And then they were engulfed, gone before the lava could even sweep them away.


End file.
